Rapid Prototypes - Working with an existing IP

Cohort 5 just finished their 4th round of Rapid Prototype Production where each team of 5-6 members was handed an existing Intellectual Property (IP) to create a game around. This meant that we already had artwork to base our design off and fiction to work with, making the game design easier in some respects but harder in others. The following is documentation of one team's work over a 2-week period on this round of projects, as seen through the eyes of a producer:

Our IP is Avatar: The Last Airbender and my first task was to get a better grasp on the subject material. So, 8-10 episodes later I’m remembering the little bit I knew about the series and have a pretty good feel for what elements make for an interesting game. We also made sure to take into consideration the idea of indirect control within the gameplay.

Our first meetings were spent learning about everyone’s strengths, weaknesses, and passions as well as their needs for assignments. After discussing the possibility of the Wii balance board with the Wiimote as a control scheme, and TorqueX, we ended up deciding on normal-flavor Torque. Our game mechanic evolved from a temple exploration game, to a balancing pole game, to a flying game, and finally we reached a decision on an obstacle course/gauntlet challenge.

While doing my IP research, we were still on the idea of a flying game, so I mindmapped the various nuances of flight in Avatar:

The hows, wheres and whys of flight in the Avatar world

So now I’m working on designing a obstacle course layout, and playing with the ideas of how to use the 4 bending elements in gameplay effectively.

Work done so far:

• Gained familiarity with the IP (read: watched cartoons)
• Worked with Brian and Darrell on a plan for the gameplay
• Discussed art styles and needs with Pam and Lauren
• Analyzed concerns with the other team members in regards to workflow and assignments
• Came to agreement on what is needed for Monday

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Our interim presentation went very well. We had the Aang model in the environment and a basic temple structure in place. Aang can do the fire and water bending attacks, as well as a boosted air jump, so our mechanics were well in place. When mentioning the puzzles Ron suggested we concentrate on that and make them really reflect the use of the different elements. Currently in our design, which can be seen here:

Preliminary level design

We have a multi-chambered level with 4 elemental chambers, a central chamber, and a training corridor. The air chamber is tranquil and acts as a starting/ending point, as air benders are more peaceful and non-combative. The fire chamber is combative and intense, as are fire bending skills, while the earth chamber is more catastrophic and destructive. The water chamber, even though we are using an offensive water bending attack in the gameplay, is a puzzle chamber to reflect on the reserved nature of the water bending tribes. Upon hearing the idea of the puzzle chamber, Ron suggested we concentrate on that puzzle aspect and make use of the unique properties of the 4 elements to solve those puzzles.

I am now reviewing the various powers and coming up with ideas for puzzles that would require a specific bending technique to solve them. Some of my ideas are scanned below.

Some water bending puzzle ideas

Some fire bending puzzle ideas

I think for the purposes of a prototype of this game, we should do one large chamber that has a different puzzle for each element to solve. That way we can illustrate how the different elements can be used to solve puzzles and the puzzles can be shown as examples of obstacles that could be put in place should we build a more expansive level.

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Final build is done, amazing, and it’s only 5:30! Today was spent implementing sounds, finishing the AI, and testing.

Since my last post, I finished up all the game sounds (which I would normally preview here, but I don’t think .ogg files work with our blog), modeled and textured a Pai Sho piece as our in-game pickup, and I managed to at least get the attack sounds to work in the script, but couldn’t get the BGM to work. I figured it was just my novice programming skills against me, but Darrell had some struggles with it too, so I don’t feel quite so bad. He’s awesome, though, and got it working, so all is well.

I’m really proud of the Pai Sho piece:

I can't believe I actually did this...

I knew making the physical model was simple, just a cylinder flipped around to the side. But I had never tried to do a texture map before from scratch (I just modded a sample file for my donut in Intro, and my vehicle was just colored, not textured). So I sat down with the Maya tutorial files and battled my way through it. Luckily I had vectored out the White Lotus symbol way early in the production stage, so I had that readily available. Here’s the flat texture:

This may not look like much, but it's impressive to me

And the white lotus symbol I vectored out before finally got some good use:

Basically redrawn by hand from a reference image, easily scaled

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The game presentation went very well and overall, we were pleased with the end product. After the presentations, our group met to discuss how we felt it all went. We came up with the following:

- 90% of the audience agreed, they knew that the balls were supposed to go on the pedistal.
- Everything we wanted to get done was accomplished
- Troubleshooting went well, when things didn’t work we powered through them
- Torque was a good choice for our mechanics, Constructor worked out well for our environment (saved us on size)

Things we would change:
- Animation for flight, maybe the air sphere Aang rides on
- Color code or illuminate the ball/pedestal puzzle so it’s more obvious

And, a final list of my contributions:
- Researched IP, developed game mechanics and puzzles
- Kept running updates on changes and level design
- Designed temple puzzles (some of which weren’t used)
- Modeled and textured Pai Sho piece
- Developed all sounds and implemented weapon/character sounds in game code